It is always smart to make money out of the things you are good at and truly enjoy doing. But if you will remain focused on your revenue alone rather than actually providing value, then your content creation is doomed to fail. Ben Baker sits down with Neal Veglio of Podknows Productions to share his long and colorful run in the radio industry. Neal looks back on how he found success in his shows by talking about the things he loves and people would find interesting instead of giving all of his energy to getting sponsorships. He also goes deep about the importance of learning the right communication skills to successfully get your target audience’s attention and how this parallels the subtle art of listening.
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Neal Veglio On Providing Value When Creating Content For Your Audience
Thank you all very much for coming back and joining me for another show. It is an amazing audience that I have. You guys are incredible. The information and loyalty you give, the fact that you share, read and subscribe, I appreciate each and every one of you. Thank you very much for being on the show. I’ve got a treat for you. Neal Veglio is on the show. He and I are going to talk about communication and the subtle art of listening. Neal comes to us from over 30 years, whether we’re going to be official or unofficial, in the radio industry. He’s got an incredibly unique perspective. Neal, thanks for being on the show. Let’s get at it.
Sorry. Were you talking to me? I wasn’t listening. Sorry about that. I’m with you now.
Put down your cup of tea. Pay attention to the guy from this side of the pond. Neal has got a bit of an accent, but we’ll deal with it.
“Are you all right, mate? How is it going? Isn’t it lovely?” That is literally every movie I ever watch, where one of the guys or gals from your side of the pond ever try and do a British accent. It’s worth watching the movie just for that alone. Emily Blunt, we’ve got the same problem in this end with her as well. She needs to stop trying to do American accents, bless her. Gorgeous, lovely lady and a great actress, but she cannot do an American accent.
Accents are one of those things that are this real challenge. It’s all about listening and the ear. It’s all about being able to sit there and mimic the sound that is different from where you come from. That could be a great segue in this conversation. Before we get into that, let’s talk about you, Neal. You come from the radio industry. Bring us up–to–date and give us a brief history of Neal. Where did you come from? Where are you now? What are you doing?
That is a mess. I love it when people say, “Tell us about you. What have you done?” It was like, “Where do I start? Which of the 90 radio stations that I worked for do I start with?“
Let’s talk about the ones that didn’t fire you. That will bring it down to about five. If it’s the typical radio industry in Canada, it’s like five have fired you and everybody else, you just walked away from.
You’re not even joking there. It‘s crazy. Talk about what a volatile industry it is, but at the same time, it’s like anything that’s fun to do. It’s badly paid and very unstable. That’s the way it works. It’s the creative industries overall. Let me put it into the context of the relevant stuff that I’ve done. I could mention every little podic to the radio station that played classic jazz that I stayed up for three months before I decided, “This just isn’t me. No amount of money is going to make this worthwhile.” That brings it right down to a handful. Long story short, as a child getting involved in community charity, radio stations, and that got me honing my craft. I think I’m probably the youngest ever talk show host in the UK. We’re talking about radio station. I was on it for a month.
It had a bandwidth around three blocks or something like that, right?
Yes, you were lucky if you can get your neighbors to listen. That was like my initial toe dipping, if you like. In the course of a month, I’d taken a radio show in the evenings that no one was listening to and turned it into the hot topic of the town. We were getting crazy callers on, and people were looking at me like, “What are you doing? Why are you taking these randoms on?“ It’s a typical juvenile thing, making fart noises down the phone. I’m thinking it was hilarious and engaging them in conversation. It segues into the point of this conversation, there we go. I’m giving you value already.
If you want to get real attention, you must make a genuine real-life connection. Share on XI suppose that was the initial dabble with radio and sound as a medium. A pointless college course where nobody ever turned up maybe a couple of years later, discovering my love of taking concepts and putting them into audio for the sake of assignments, and getting feedback from tutors that were saying, “You’re doing this as a complete joke. You’re clearly not taking the course seriously, but maybe this is in your future. Maybe if you knuckle down a little bit, you can do something with this.” That sat with me, and I had that in the back of my mind. I then went on work experience, as we call it here. I was meant to be doing two weeks at a little radio station in Gloucestershire in a place called Cheltenham. It was called Boss 603, played Cheltenham’s classic hits. There was a bit of a running joke. If you rearranged one of the letters from one of the words and put it in the other word, it was a bit more accurate of the description of the radio station. It was playing the album tracks. It was trying to be Virgin Radio, which at the time in the mid–‘90s, the whole slogan of the station was, “Classic album tracks and the best new music.” Unfortunately, Boss 603 was playing classic S-hits and not much new music. It was a great start.
I ended up being offered freelance work there. I stayed for maybe a year, then I just thought, “I think I’m better than this.” A little arrogant, seventeen-year–old boy going, “I’m better than this.” I happened to get listened to by a radio station outside London. They heard me doing my Sunday evening show. They gave me a call and said, “How about coming onto our radio station? We’re hearing what you’re doing in Cheltenham. You’ve got ambition. We can hear that in the stuff you’re doing. You’re doing some very creative stuff. Come by and have a chat.” I ended up getting the late–night love show on Saturday nights, on this radio station called 1170 AM.
Back when people listened to AM radio.
Yes, exactly, when that was a thing. I was there for two years. I‘ve never gone full-time. I did the afternoon show. I think from that entire two–year period of my life, the one takeaway and one thing I remember is the lady coming in to collect the prize from the love show that I did when I started there. I’m doing my usual meet and greet thing, going to the front door, “Thanks so much for listening to my show. I appreciate it.” She turned around and said, “I want to tell you where I am when I’m listening to your show and why it’s important to me in my life.” I thought, “This is going to be a nice story.“ She went, “When I’m in the bath, naked.” I just thought, “What do I do with that?” On another side of the coin, I thought, “That is the power that we have in people’s lives.”
It’s something that’s carried with me now with modern audio delivery. We don’t realize and appreciate the impact that our words and communication has on people in their everyday life. Roll forward from that moment to a radio station called StormLive, which was run by a chap called Bruno Brookes, who was an ex–Radio 1. It’s the national pop radio station in this country. It’s still going now. It’s completely run by influencers these days, but then we won’t get into that because that’s another story entirely. A guy called Bruno Brookes did the Radio 1 Top 40 on Sunday afternoons. I grew up listening to this guy and going, “Maybe I don’t want to do that specifically about what he’s doing, his energy, the level of tone, what he’s throwing in to this.” He’s making counting down records in a sequential order for three hours sound fun and exciting.
When he offered me a job on his radio station, StormLive, that was the moment of like, “Absorb this like a sponge, get together with this guy, and find out what makes him tick.” He was very gracious and very generous with his time. He’d sit down with me and critique my show. He’d do air checks with me and say, “One thing I’m going to tell you now, Neal, in your life that I hope you take on board. This will definitely set you apart from everybody else who’s doing the same job as you. Different, not dangerous.” The big temptation whenever you get a radio show is to go in and be the Howard Stern and do the edgy conversation, talk about sex, boobies, sweat and all that stuff. His point was, “To get real attention, you need to make a real–life connection.” Howard Stern does this brilliantly. What he does is he does the edgy stuff, but he also makes that connection. He’s got the double whammy of the communication going on there.
For me, it was a real wake-up call. It was a case of, “I’ve got to think now about how I can go next level with these listeners, engage with them and connect with them on a much deeper level than just going on playing fart noises, and having people calling up and going, “Wee,” and all that stuff. I think that was the turning point that made me make a decision on the kind of audio that I wanted to do. It wasn’t playing 40 records in a row and talking about show business. It was definitely something far more engaging and deeper than that. I suppose that’s the significant part of my career. I was just rolling through radio station after radio station, until I quit the industry years ago because it sucked.
Why did it suck?
This is a big question, “What has happened to radio?“ I feel that it’s probably another topic entirely for another day. Radio has lost its way. It doesn’t know what it is. You look at everything else that’s happening right now. You’ve got social media platforms, which are doing all the stuff the radio was doing when it was spending a fortune on it. It’s getting the same results with a much more updated feel, look and brand. What radio is doing is it’s made the mistake of hiring too many people who are old-school and don’t think forwardly enough. You get some young executives that come in. You get guys in their 30s and they come in and go, “I’m going to shake up radio. “ What happens is they go to report to their board, and the board go, “We don’t like that. That’s unsafe and new. We don’t like new. We don’t like different. We’re going to go with the same–old, playing records. That’s what works. My dad did and granddad did it. That’s what we’re going to do.”
Therefore, the radio industry goes, “We’ll stick with the same–old format because it’s safe. We don’t want to upset advertisers. Why would you have an advertiser asking you on the phone, “What is this? This is different. We didn’t sign up for this.” Rather than educating the advertiser on what audio is now and how it works and the connection that it makes, showing them maybe some podcast and YouTube stats, talking to them as human beings and explaining to them why things evolve rather than do that, “You don’t like it? Okay, we’ll just stick with the same old. We’ll just hemorrhage money left, right, center because no one’s listening.“
Understanding the why cannot be trademarked because it’s where everything comes from. Share on XNow that I got you off that rant, I love that rant. I love when people go off on rants because it shows what they’re passionate about. Getting back to two things that you talked about earlier and then we’ll tie it all up with that last little bit of conversation. I love the fact that you talked about this woman was listening to you in the radio, and I love the fact that you talked about connection. Those are two things that need to be talked about when it comes to communication and also to listening. We need to talk in the language and in the medium of our audience. I think that is a critical thing for us to be thinking about. If we’re only thinking about us and we’re thinking about our head, like you said about being innovative but not dangerous. It’s sitting there going, “How do I get people’s attention, but in a way that they’re going to resonate with?” I want to hear your thoughts on this. Let’s talk about the communication on listening and how we can develop our communication style, whether it’s on air, off air, personally, within a boardroom or whatever, to be able to sit there and speak in a language that not only resonates, but engages.
It’s funny because I had this conversation with a chap who’s looking at starting a podcast. Anybody that’s heard my content before will know that I’ve got this obsession, and Simon Sinek has made money from this. It is very simple concept, “Why?” Why are you doing it? That applies not just in Simon Sinek’s books because obviously he’s managed to turn that into his brand, fair enough. I don’t think ‘why’ is something you can trademark because it is where everything comes from honestly.
Ask a six-year-old.
Exactly, thank you so much because what you’ve done there is you’ve allowed us to visualize what this is about. It’s finding out what the kid wants to know. Being an adult, you edged away at that and you try and think with a more logical brain. You try and think of things in a very clinical way, whereas the child actually has got the right idea, “Why are you doing this? Why? Tell me, explain to me.” When it comes to any delivery or any connection with an audience, any branding that you want to do, what you need to think about is less about what you want to get out of it for selfish reasons, and more about what idea you want to explore.
Here’s why. If you’re wanting to do a show about something, for example, let’s say you want to do a show about communication. What you want to do is you want to think about, “What do I want the listener to get from this conversation first and foremost? Am I interested in that? If I’m not interested in that, I’m not going to ask the right questions. If I’m not asking the right questions, my audience is going to get anything out of this.” What you need to think about first of all is for every guest that you book on a podcast, for every networking event you go to, you need to think first and foremost, “What am I wanting to get out of this conversation? Do I want to offer value or do I want to take value? If I want to take value, I need to research what I’m going to be getting from these people. I need to figure out what they’re about. I need to find out what people are going to these networking events. I want to find out more about the guests that I’m going to book for my podcast. I want to find out more about the subject I’m going to be talking about my YouTube channel.”
Once you’ve done that, you can then start to ask the relevant questions. There are many podcasts that are getting people on for the sake of getting them on. They’re thinking about the audience, they’re thinking about the numbers, the followers that they’ve got, the share, all that stuff, the influences, but what they’re not thinking about is, “If someone finds my show and they listened to this guy, are they going to be interested in what he has to say?” If it’s a case of he’s got 1.2 million followers on Twitter, on LinkedIn or whatever, if those 1.2 million followers on LinkedIn or Twitter or Instagram are not interested or will not get any value from the conversation, you’ve wasted your time. What’s the point? You’ve not enjoyed the conversation, therefore you’re not going to give as much to it as you might do if you thoroughly researched what concept you want to explore and where you want to go with that conversation. I hope I’ve answered your question there, Ben, because I went on for so long, I forgot what the question was.
It comes down to how we help people understand that communication is a two–way street. It’s all about engagement, and you’ve covered that. Engagement is what it’s about. As you’re saying, it’s the 1.2 million followers. If they’re all people that sit there and grab your content and never do anything with it, what’s the point? What’s the point of being the number one radio show or whatever, if nobody is going and buying stuff from the sponsors? If no one is ever calling into the station, nobody is being part of the show, nobody is telling other people about the show, or whatever. If we don’t have engagement, and engagement is built on effective communication, listening and that interaction, then there is no point of grabbing a mic and setting up a technology and putting the podcast together because all you’re doing is making more noise out there in the world. God knows the world doesn’t need more noise. My question to you is what do we do? We’re in an absolute world of noise, where everybody is shouting from their microphone. Everybody is saying, “Look at me. Look at my Lamborghini. Look at my rented helicopter. Look how amazing I am.” How do we get people beyond that self-centered selfie generation and get people back to having engaging conversations with each other, to be able to get insights, to gain trust and build relationships?
This is quite easy to answer. A lot of people overthink this, to be honest. My most successful radio shows were the ones, and when I say most successful, obviously unlike with on–demand audio, it’s very difficult to gauge how successful you are, any other way than the phones are ringing, the texts are coming in, the social media is bleeping. You’ve got people turning up to the front door, asking for car stickers, with the case of UK radio stations where they’re obsessed with car stickers, it’s so weird. Those are the other ways of gauging a successful radio show. Where I’m going with this is the ones that I got the most feedback from that would then ultimately lead to one or two things, either A) Another radio station coming in and making me an offer because I’m so good at what I do, or B) Advertisers wanting to advertise on the radio station or sponsor my show.
Here’s what I didn’t do to achieve those goals and those results, sell. I didn’t sell. All I did was I spent four hours of my shift, making sure I gathered together the most entertaining and engaging content that I could deliver during a four–hour sweep. The music is irrelevant. As far as I’m concerned, it doesn’t matter what music you were playing as a radio jock. People were listening for you, the jock. When they’re tuning in, they know two things. Number one, they can trust you to do a decent show and not offend their kids in the back of the car. Not offend them and not make them feel awkward with their kids in the back of the car. Number two, that they were going to find out from you, something that would be of benefit to them and make them deepen that connection with you. Those two things were going to happen.
This is where a lot of podcasters are thinking the wrong way around. We hear a lot about call to action. The amount of podcasts I’ve listened to where the first thing they say is, “Listen, subscribe, share, review.” No. Why? I don’t care about you. You’ve done nothing for me yet. Give me something, give me a reason to want to help you and to help promote your show. If I’m going to be sharing your show on my social media channels, I damn well better have a reason to do so because I’ll tell you what, if I’m going to be listening to a 60–minute chat that is in no way relevant to me, and I’ve got nothing out of it, I’m not going to go, “Guys, listen to this irrelevant 60–minute chat where these people are having self-indulgent conversations about baloney.” That’s not going to happen.
There is a huge difference between releasing something out of revenue and producing content based on the things you are passionate about. Share on XHowever, if I’ve listened to your show and you’ve told me something that is life-changing, it’s costing me nothing to hear it, it’s not a course. I’ve not had to pay $97.97 to listen to this content. It’s come to me for free through your podcast. I’ll tell you what, I’m going to share that content with my friends, who I also want to do well on this content. This is number one first and foremost, what I would do. I would think about what you want to do to offer value to your listeners, because that’s why you’re here. If you’re setting up a podcast or any content for that matter, just to get attention and to sell, you go on about it, you’re doing the wrong thing.
If you truly want attention, light yourself on fire because trust me, you’re going to get all the attention you need.
Also possibly injections in your shoulder with the people that think you’re crazy. Anybody can get attention. There are many quick hacks for doing this. We all know about these click farms in Bangladesh. If that’s your thing, if you want to go to sponsors and say, “I’ve got 5,000 downloads on my latest episode, would you like to sponsor it?” You can do that. You’ll get found out, but you can do that. Whereas if you want to have a genuine following that is engaged with what you’re doing and will build a deeper connection with you and the stuff you’re doing will resonate with them, then the way of doing that is to stop thinking about call to actions. If you do the job right, if you do the podcast for the right reason, that call to action, you wouldn’t even have to mention it because they will do it. They will go, “This podcast is amazing.”
I’m not suggesting that you shouldn’t say, “If you like the show, subscribe, please do so you don’t miss an episode. By the way, if you’ve got something out of it, then rate and review.” You need to do that because people are fundamentally stupid. Unless you tell them they’ve got to do that and how they do that, they’re going to go, “Duh.” What I’m saying to you is the energy that you have to put into getting what you want out the other end is going to change because there’s going to be a different type of transaction. When you have that different approach to it, where you’re going, “Guys, I’ve got a great episode for you now. This is a chap who he made $10 million by putting X before Y and Y before Z. He’s going to tell you exactly how you can do that.” The difference in energy of, “I’m going to bring value to the world now. I passionately believe in what I’m doing,” rather than thinking, “I hope I get 50 downloads out of this, so I can sell it to an advertiser.” It’s going to get you different results. Trust me on this.
It’s interesting because there are many podcasts I’ve listened to, whether it’s business or radio or podcasting or whatever, that you’re right. They have no idea how to put their audience first, and that’s the thing. Whenever you’re trying to share an idea, whenever you’re trying to get something across, it can’t ever be about you. It has to be about the idea. It has to be about your audience. It has to be about adding value. If we can’t do that, we’re not communicating, and we’re certainly not listening. We can’t add value. We can’t bring other people’s needs, wants, desires to the surface and help them solve their problems if we’re not listening to them.
It’s all about building that connection. It’s all about being able to sit there and say, “I hear you. I understand you. I may not agree with you, but at least I’m willing to listen to you, value you, understand you, understand what you need to be able for us to have an engaging conversation.” What’s the biggest challenge that you find with people that are just coming into this, whether it’s radio podcasting, new leaders, whoever? To be able to sit there and say, “How do you get them to get out of their own heads and get them to understand that communication is not about me, it’s about we?”
It’s quite simple. I think what a lot of podcasters don’t do when they’re starting, and this is what I insist all my podcasters that work with me do. First off the bat, before we even start looking at microphones and how we’re going to record, the content, any of that stuff, we’re going to find out who is listening to us. Where they go wrong with marketing in my humble view, and I’m not a marketing expert, and there are probably going to be tons of marketing people that listen to your show and they’re going to go, “What’s this limey twat talking about? He knows nothing about marketing.” What I can tell you that they do is they look at the cliched surface aspects of their avatar.
They are not avatars, your listener is not an avatar. Your listener is a living, breathing, human being. They eat, sleep, shag and poop. They are normal human beings. These people have got normal human desires. They want to solve the same problems as you. They want to have the same joys as you. Rather than going right, “Brian, let’s do a podcast that’s targeting Lexus drivers.” No. We don’t care about what car they’re driving, because here’s why. If you’re targeting Lexus drivers, because you think Lexus drivers are going to be your ideal client, because they might have a little bit more money. I don’t know what Lexuses are like where you are, but where I am, they’re seen as a prestige car for people that can’t quite afford an Aston Martin or a Land Rover.
You’re going to be looking at a very specific demographic with that anyway, because they’re normally going to be people that might have decent credit, maybe quite happy to get themselves on an expensive finance deal, but they’re not quite confident enough to commit to that level of getting a Land Rover or a Jaguar or an Aston Martin. I’m sorry. I can’t resist it. You’re making that assumption that everybody that drives a Lexus is going to have a certain bracket of financial income. What happens if that person is driving a Lexus, came into some money from an inheritance? What happens if that person who’s driving a Lexus has stretched themselves and they’ve done it beyond their means? What happens at that person that’s driving a Lexus comes from a very wealthy family, and they’ve not needed to work in their lives but they’ve just got a rich daddy that has bought a Lexus.
Immediately what you’re doing there is you’re turning your back on entire demographics because you’ve made an assumption about the kind of car that people drive. This is the thing. I drive an old car. I don’t buy new cars. Why? Because I don’t see the point in spending hundreds of dollars per month in a brand–new car, when I can spend a little bit less and get a used car that’s got an engine that’s worn in, and I know what’s going to go wrong with it because the moment I buy it, it’s going to happen. That’s just my personal preference. Can I afford a brand–new car? Of course I can, who can’t in 2021?
Always see your audience as living and breathing human beings instead of just mere avatars. Share on XThe point is if you’re going to be leveling me with ads for brand new cars, you’re not going to be targeting me because that’s not what I’m interested in. You’ve got to think a bit deeper. You’ve got to niche it right down. This is where we come down to rather than thinking about whole categories of people, you’ve got to imagine your listener like you know them. You’ve got to almost imprint them on people in your life. I’ll give you an example of this. I’ve got a show that I work with called Mind Body Travel. They are travel agents. Their listener is called Philippa, and she is hard. I’ve got a crush on Philippa. She’s in her early 50s. I couldn’t tell you what car she drives because she’s got about 3 or 4 cars. She just takes her pick whenever she feels like it. I know Philippa personally because my podcasters, they’ve described her to me. We made that connection, and that is who they want listening to their show. Therefore, every single episode of their show is targeting Philippa specifically, and her husband, Derek, as well. Derek is a big fan of the show.
This is what I’m talking about. You can find it easier to connect with people when A) You know their name. B) You know their age. C) You know what they’re about. D) You have an idea about what they’re up to in their private lives. What shows do they watch? Do they go for walks in the park? Are they swingers? They’re off to Jamaica, having themselves a nice Piña colada and looking for a nice well-hung gentleman that they can join them for some evening excursions. Whatever it is about these people, you need to identify it and you need to commit to it. What you don’t want to be doing is going, “This is who I want listening to my show, but I’ll take anybody. I’ll tell you what, I’ll even have Bill, who’s got a spatter in his hand and an oily rag around his head because that’s cool too.” It’s not going to work. Clearly, if these people are going to find your show by chance, great, the more the merrier. If you’re not identifying a specific audience and targeting them with a purpose, then it’s not going to work. Instead of getting everybody, you’re going to get nobody. Niche out, identify maybe a handful of people that would be your ideal listener and make sure your content is interesting to them.
It’s all about understanding, “What are these people passionate about?” It’s amazing when I ask that question, how few people can answer it though. That’s the challenge. The challenge is to sit there and say, “Who are the people that are listening? Who are the people that I’m engaging with? Who are the people that I want to change their opinion? What are the challenges that are going on in their life? What are they worried about right now? What are they excited about right now? How do I reach them?” If you can’t reach people, and that’s what the whole podcast is coming down to, is how do we reach people on their level? Not on your level, not in your language, not with your ideas, not with your preconceptions, but truly an absolute understanding who they are and why they should care. If we can do that, life is so much better. Neal, I’ve enjoyed the show immensely. I’m going to make sure that everybody can get in touch with you. I’ve got one last question I want to ask you before I let you out the door. I ask everybody the same question for you. When you get off the air and you leave the studio and you get in your car and you drive home, what’s the one thing you want people to think about you when you’re not in the room?
I like that because that’s the question I ask all my podcasters. In terms of radio, what I do when I drive right from a radio station, I suppose the current analogy would be, “What do I think when I put together a nice episode that I think is delivering value and is something that’s going to make people feel at least entertained but hopefully educated in some way as well? Suppose for me, what I want people to think about me when I’ve done that, whether it’s been on mic or off mic for somebody else, I want them to feel like I’ve contributed something. I want them to feel like my existence had a purpose. I was born to do this. I feel that way.
I feel that I was put on this planet because we’re all uncomfortable about saying what we’re good at, and we shouldn’t be. Frankly, it’s a beautiful thing. If you’re born with a talent, if you’re born with skills, even if you’re not born with them, but you’re born with a passion for it, therefore you give yourself the skills. You learn, you take courses online, you download Audacity and learn it like the back of your hand. You download Adobe Audition and learn it like the back of your hands so that you know it to the point that you know about beaches that exist, that no one else even knows exists. If you’re doing that, then that’s a beautiful thing to feel proud of. I feel that this whole thing about, “I’ve got a hundred downloads in my episode, and that’s awkward that I feel good about that,” feel good about it. It’s great. It’s brilliant that you’re on this planet for a reason and you’re serving a purpose.
I feel that I’m on this planet to help people benefit from the experience that I’ve gained from doing 30 years of radio broadcasting, that now allows me to give the benefit by experience to new people. Years ago you said to somebody, “You’re brand new to audio, go and do a radio show.” It would never happen in a million years. They would look at you like you’re crazy, “I’ve never spoken on the radio. How do you expect me to do that?” Now it’s a beautiful thing that podcasting has such an easy entry that you can teach somebody that works in a library, that has never even recorded a word on a microphone, can now do that. That for me is what I’m all about. If someone can feel a little bit more confident about the idea of doing it, giving it a try, experimenting and just going for it, then I’ve done my job.
I love it. Neal, I love your passion. I love your energy and I love this conversation. Thanks for being such an amazing guest.
It’s a pleasure. It has been great. Thank you so much for having me on. Cheers.
Important Links:
- Mind Body Travel
- https://www.LinkedIn.com/in/nealveglio/
- https://Twitter.com/podknowsprod
- https://www.Facebook.com/podknows
- https://PodKnowsProductions.com/
About Neal Veglio
Although he got his big break on a radio station in the stunning Cotswolds when he was a fresh-faced teenager, Neal Veglio has been broadcasting on the airwaves since 1991, when he was just 15 years old. In 1999, after bouncing between small radio station weekend slots, he finally landed his first full-time morning show.
During just one year, he caused such a stir in his home county of Oxfordshire, that the market’s biggest radio station rolled through three different morning show guys and he was eventually poached by former national Radio 1 Top 40 DJ, Bruno Brookes.
After starting as the mid-morning guy on the pioneering national digital and internet radio station Stormlive, he was quickly elevated to the station’s flagship afternoon ‘drive show’ where he was essentially waking up Americans and late working Brits with his chaotic brand of humour. It was at this station that he first realised he could post clips of his show on the stations website, and generate repeat clicks and traffic for the station overall.
Sadly, the dotcom bubble burst, and Neal was one of many staffers to lose his position.
Neal continued to dabble with internet radio broadcasting and posting audio, and together with then startup company Libsyn, began experimenting with podcasting content for fun.
Six years later, when the radio industry began to implode, Neal eventually decided to focus his attention on his events business, and spent his time mainly doing corporate and VIP parties, as well as stage hosting.
In 2011, he joined a small consortium of small business owners who had the vision of recreating Stormlive, and he produced audio content for use on that station, as well as the brand’s podcast.
This love of the medium has continued ever since.Neal is the founder and owner of UK B2B podcast marketing solutions company “Podknows”.
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